Bellevue School District Advanced Learning and CogAT guide.

Bellevue School District calls its gifted program Advanced Learning. It identifies students with the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT), which covers verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal reasoning, together with i-Ready reading and math results and state test scores.

This guide is written for Bellevue families. Every 2nd grader in the district is screened, so for most families 2nd grade is the year that decides the elementary path.

What Advanced Learning gives your child in Bellevue

1. Centered services in grades 2 to 5: full-day advanced learning classrooms where instruction uses one-grade-advanced standards in all core subjects, with extensions that push deeper and more creative thinking. They are at Cherry Crest, Medina, Somerset, and Woodridge elementary schools, with bus service inside each site’s feeder area.
2. Centered services in middle school: an identified group of students takes language arts, social studies, math, and science together at Odle or Tyee. Math runs at least one year ahead of the district sequence, and 8th grade science prepares students for high school biology.
3. Domain-specific services in kindergarten through 11th grade: students strong in literacy or math get advanced work in their regular classroom, with a written Advanced Learning plan the family can see in ParentVue.
4. AL Home School Services: students identified for Centered services who prefer to stay at their neighborhood school get domain-specific services there instead.

How Bellevue screens 2nd graders

Bellevue screens every 2nd grader in three steps:

1. Fall cognitive screening: all 2nd graders take the CogAT Screening Form at school. Parents get an email about two weeks before the test date, with the option to decline testing.
2. Further assessment in early spring: the district reviews i-Ready reading and math results and report cards. Families of students moving forward are emailed by early spring and asked to authorize the CogAT Post-Screener.
3. Decision by the end of April: a Multidisciplinary Team (MDT) reviews all the data, and families get results and identification decisions by email.

Kindergartners and 5th graders are screened from classroom data first, with CogAT testing for students who move forward. Parents of students in grades 1 and 3 to 11 can apply for testing, and staff, students, or community members can refer a child by emailing advancedlearning@bsd405.org or calling (425) 456-4136.

How Bellevue decides who is identified

A district-level team looks at a portfolio of evidence: CogAT scores, i-Ready or Iowa achievement scores, and state Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) scores in grades 3 and up. Bellevue says no weights are assigned to the individual data points. It does publish the current score range of students identified for services:

1. Centered services (grades 2 to 12): CogAT Verbal, Quantitative, Nonverbal, and Composite scores at or above a 132 Standard Age Score (SAS), which is 2 standard deviations above average, plus reading and math achievement about 2 years above grade level or above the 98th percentile.
2. Domain-specific services in literacy: a CogAT Verbal score of about 132 or higher, and reading achievement 2 years above grade level or above the 98th percentile.
3. Domain-specific services in math: a CogAT Quantitative score of about 132 or higher, and math achievement 2 years above grade level or above the 98th percentile.

The CogAT is scored against children born within the same three months, so a younger 2nd grader is compared with other younger 2nd graders.

The CogAT Screening Form that every 2nd grader takes uses one part of each battery: Picture Analogies (verbal), Number Analogies (quantitative), and Figure Matrices (nonverbal). At Level 8 the answers are pictures, so no reading is needed. Students who move on take the Post-Screener in the spring. See NNAT® vs CogAT® vs OLSAT® for how the CogAT compares with other gifted tests.

Appeals and retesting

Appeals must be filed within ten days of receiving results, and only for a problem with the testing conditions or a misapplied or miscalculated score. Bellevue does not consider private IQ testing. Students identified for domain-specific services can apply to test again the next fall to be considered for Centered services.

Questions Bellevue parents should ask

1. What date is my child scheduled to take the CogAT Screening Form this fall?
2. When will we hear whether my child is moving on to the CogAT Post-Screener?
3. If my child qualifies for Centered services, which site would they attend, and when would they start?
4. What would domain-specific services look like in my child’s classroom this year?
5. When does next year’s application window open if we want my child retested for Centered services?

Our broader questions to ask your school guide can help you turn those into one clear conversation with the office or program contact.

How to prepare effectively for the CogAT

1. Learn the format. Go through the three parts of the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT): verbal, quantitative, and nonverbal, and after every question talk through the rule: what changed and what stayed the same, not just which answer is right.
2. Practice 10 to 15 minutes a day, for as long as you can. Reasoning skills build like a muscle, a little at a time. A few weeks of practice helps, but months of short, steady sessions build much more.
3. Spend extra time on the weakest type. Most children find one or two question types harder. Focus there once the basics feel familiar.
4. Take full, timed practice tests: at least two, and more is better. A full test is where your child learns pacing and how to work alone against a clock, the way test day works. Take several along the way, and save the last two for the final few weeks as a dress rehearsal.

Bellevue gives the CogAT on a touch-screen computer with audio-led instructions and headphones, so some practice should happen on a screen, and it helps if your child is used to listening to directions through headphones.

Practice teaches your child what the questions look like and gives them ways to approach and think through them, so test day feels familiar instead of surprising.